Family Reunion

This year we did a different kind of family reunion.  Instead of meeting in West Virginia, we all met up in Bristol, VA/TN for the Virginia Tech vs. University of Tennessee football game.  The world's largest college football game ever!

Paige and Virginia exploring the creek behind the cabin.

Friday night our generation plus Elizabeth went to the "Tailgate Party" concert at Bristol Motor Speedway.  We saw Old Dominion, The Band Perry and Kenny Chesney.  We aren't big country fans and didn't know much of the music of these groups, but we both enjoyed the concert.  They were all very entertaining to watch.  I think the highlight, though, was when Peyton Manning came out on stage with Kenny Chesney!

 Elizabeth in the golf cart behind us getting a ride to the entrance for the concert.

Old Dominion on stage

 Saturday morning I woke up with a horrible migraine.  I had some coffee, took some medicine and tried laying down to get rid of it.  It wasn't overly helpful, but then Lloyd's friends who were going to the game with us showed up.  One of them, Jason, is a physical therapist and worked on my neck for me.  He loosened it up enough that between that and the medicine it took the edge off the headache.  Jason was a Godsend that day.

We went up to the cabin where the Stivers and Umbarger families were staying for lunch and family pictures and then we headed off to Bristol to tailgate.  I spent most of the day sitting in the shade of the cars drinking water trying to help my headache.  Everyone else enjoying playing cornhole, running around and hanging out.  John grilled up some burger and hot dogs and we all at and had a great time.  After dinner it was time to head over to the speedway.

When we got to our seats we all had cards with instructions on them.  We all held up one of our cards during the National Anthem and this is what the other side of the stadium looked like.

And after that we all had another card to hold up- these representing the two schools who were playing in the game.  This is what the other side of the stadium looked like- our side was similar, just for Tennessee Vols instead of VT Hokies.

Each end of the racetrack had some cars set up on it, including a VT car (with Frank Beamer's number on it) at our end of a UT car (with Peyton Manning's number on it) at the other end.

Us and 156,000 of our closest friends.

The game started out well for Virginia Tech, but then they seemed to forget how to score and ended up getting beat 45-24.  We watched most of the game, but left shortly before it ended so we could get back to the car and head back to the cabin.

This is proof that our children can sleep ANYWHERE.  It was LOUD in that speedway, but that didn't stop Virginia from laying down on my lap and going to sleep.

Even though it was a short trip to Bristol, we had a great time hanging out with the family and Lloyd's friends, even if his friends are Hokies.  It's pretty cool to know that we were part of a world record setting crowd.